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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

An embarrassing critique of “The Enemies of Reason”

A couple of weeks ago, before I went on vacation, the BBC aired a two-part documentary by Richard Dawkins entitled The Enemies of Reason. Part One dealt primarily with the paranormal and various New Age phenomena, while Part Two, which aired mere days before my London trip, dealt squarely with alternative medicine in an uncompromising […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The more things change…

John is sick and tired of antievolutionists. Who can blame him? As he points out, they are utterly immune to evidence or reason: I was wrong. Very wrong. Information isn’t what makes people change their minds. Experience is, and generally nobody has much experience of the facts of biology that underwrite evolution. The so-called “deficit […]

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Biology Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Pseudoscience Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Intellectual curiosity at its finest

Vacation time! While Orac is off in London recharging his circuits and contemplating the linguistic tricks of limericks and jokes or the glory of black holes, he’s rerunning some old stuff from his original Blogspot blog. This particular post first appeared on June 15, 2005. Enjoy! One of the criticisms of “intelligent design” (ID) creationism […]

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Anti-Semitism Entertainment/culture Evolution History Holocaust Intelligent design/creationism Movies Politics Pseudoscience Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

The fall of Ben Stein

You know, even though I know he’s been a Republican talker for a long time, that he worked for the Nixon administration as a speechwriter and lawyer, I’ve always kind of liked Ben Stein. My wife and I used to like to watch Win Ben Stein’s Money, and he was quite amusing as the principal […]

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Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Essential reading on HIV/AIDS denialism

Fellow SB’er Tara Smith, and academic neurologist Steve Novella have written an essential primer on the dangerous pseudoscience and quackery that is HIV/AIDS denialism. It’s published in PLoS and is entitled HIV Denial in the Internet Era. It makes a number of excellent points about the deadly quackery that is HIV/AIDS denialism, including how its […]